Two major paintings by Thomas Cole (1801-1848) have been gifted to the permanent collection of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, also known as Cedar Grove, a National Historic Landmark that includes the home and the studio of painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of painting.
The works are a gift from Alexander Acevedo, founder of the renowned American art gallery Alexander Gallery in New York City.
Both paintings – a study for “The Voyage of Life: Manhood,” ca. 1840, and an untitled painting of a Cole family evening gathering from about 1820 are important in different ways.
The Study for “The Voyage of Life: Manhood” is an unusually large study for one of the most important series of paintings that Cole created and the portrait of the Cole family is one of the two earliest known paintings by the artist when the family was living in Steubenville, Ohio.
Cole painted two original versions of the series. The earlier series (1840), for which this painting is a study, is in the permanent collection of Munson Museum of Art in Utica, NY. The slightly later series (1842) is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
The portrait of the Cole family has been authenticated by Cole researcher Sylvia Hasenkopf, author of the forthcoming book The Letters of Thomas Cole, 1820-1832, Volume One, to be published in 2027 by Flint Mine Press.
Hasenkopf identified a letter that Thomas Cole wrote to William Dunlap, then Vice President of the National Academy of Design, which resulted in the following account in Dunlap’s book published in 1834, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States.
Dunlap writes of Cole: “Now, 1820, he took up the palette to paint portraits.” In 1820, Cole also took instruction from itinerant portrait painter “Mr. Stein,” as recounted in the 2018 book Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hasenkopf has identified the family members portrayed through analysis of letters and other known portraits (left to right): Sarah Cole (Thomas Cole’s sister), James Cole (his father), Mary Holloway Cole (his mother, with her back to the viewer), Ann Cole (his
sister, later Ann Ackerley) and Mary Cole Bayless (his sister).
The other earliest known painting (dated 1818-1820) by Thomas Cole is titled “Ruined Castle on a Rock” and is also in the permanent collection of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, having been donated previously by Richard T. Sharp, a leading benefactor of the Thomas Cole Site, for whom the Richard Sharp Gallery at the Thomas Cole Site is named.
The Thomas Cole National Historic Site is located at 218 Spring Street, in Catskill, NY.
Illustrations, from above: Thomas Cole’s study for “The Voyage of Life: Manhood,” ca. 1840; and the untitled Cole family evening gathering, ca. 1818-1820 (provided by Thomas Cole National Historic Site).
Recent Comments